How career dreams are born

Study shows how to convince those with low self-confidence to pursue their career choice

2014-09-30

(Press-News.org) COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study shows just what it takes to convince a person that she is qualified to achieve the career of her dreams.

Researchers found that it's not enough to tell people they have the skills or the grades to make their goal a reality.

Instead, many people need a more vivid and detailed description of just how pursuing their dream career will help make them successful.

This is especially important for people who have the skills and potential to pursue a particular career, but lack the self-confidence, said Patrick Carroll, author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at The Ohio State University's Lima campus.

"Students who have chronic self-doubt may need an extra boost to pursue the dreams they are certainly able to achieve," Carroll said.

"This study finds that what they really need is a vivid picture of what will happen if they succeed."

The study was published online this week in the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

The study involved 67 undergraduate business and psychology students at Ohio State.

The students signed up to meet with a career adviser to learn about a supposedly new master's degree program in business psychology that would train them for "high-paying consulting positions as business psychologists."

However, the program didn't actually exist. The goal was to get the students interested in the program, and see how they reacted when faced with varying levels of validation to their new dreams of becoming a business psychologist. (The researchers followed a protocol to help students who may have been disappointed that there wasn't a real program. More on that below.)

All the students read a brochure about the program and then filled out several questionnaires. They were asked to rate their self-confidence that they could become a business psychologist, whether they were excited about the possibility of becoming a business psychologist, whether they thought they could be admitted to the business psychology program and whether they intended to apply. They also reported their overall GPA.

The students were then separated into four groups. Students in the control group were given an information sheet indicating no GPA requirement for the program.

The other three groups were given sheets indicating the GPA requirement was .10 below whatever they had listed as their own GPA.

In one of these groups, the "career adviser" –- who actually worked with the researchers -- simply pointed out that the students' GPA was higher than the requirement.

In another group, the validation was raised slightly: The adviser told the participants that they were exactly what the program was looking for and that it was unlikely they would be rejected if they applied.

The last group received the strongest validation to their hopes of becoming a business psychologist: They were also told they were qualified and were unlikely to be rejected if they applied. But the adviser added that it was likely that the student would be accepted with full funding and excel in the program and would graduate with numerous job offers in business psychology.

Afterward, the participants once again filled out forms asking how confident and excited they were about becoming a business psychologist and whether they expected they would be admitted. In addition, the students were given the opportunity to actually apply to the program.

The results were striking. The students in the control group and those who were simply told their GPA exceeded the program requirements didn't embrace the possible new goal of becoming a business psychologist.

These participants did not show any elevations in self-confidence related to becoming a business psychologist and were unlikely to apply to the program or even ask for more information.

"Even when students learn that they exceed some external admissions requirement to become a business psychologist, they still have to decide whether that means they should pursue that career dream instead of any others," Carroll said.

"They may need more validation than that to pursue this career goal."

However, when the adviser clearly detailed the vivid prospect of success, the students were willing to embrace the pursuit of that new business psychology goal.

Specifically, students given the most vivid validation had higher levels of self-confidence immediately after meeting with the adviser and were more likely to actually apply to the business psychology program.

"Self-confidence played a key role here. Students felt more confident that they could really be successful as a business psychologist when they received a detailed picture from their adviser," Carroll said.

Following the study, the researchers thoroughly debriefed all participants on why it was necessary to use deception to study how students, like them, naturally respond to social validation to pursue new career goals.

In addition, researchers provided all participants with detailed information on career counseling services that they could utilize on campus for help in making future career choices. This extensive debriefing was designed to remove any adverse influence of the study feedback on participants before they left, Carroll said.

After the purpose of the study was explained to them, many participants were enthusiastic about the research and its relevance in revealing how others can shape their own career decisions, he said.

Carroll said he sees the relevance of this research nearly every day, as students seek his input about career plans or the possibility of graduate school.

"Sometimes students have the grades, the motivation and the ability but simply lack the necessary self-confidence to whole-heartedly invest in the pursuit of a realistic new goal," he said.

"This work shows how parents, teachers and counselors can steer students into the right direction to achieve their dreams."

The findings are especially relevant now as students prepare for an uncertain job market and they, along with their teachers and guidance counselors, try to find the best career choices for them.

"Educators are trying to lead students to the most realistic career options," Carroll said. "This research is important to understanding how students make revisions in their career goals and decide which career possibilities they should embrace."

INFORMATION: This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Written by Jeff Grabmeier.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Chemical interactions between silver nanoparticles and thiols: A comparison of mercaptohexanol again

2014-09-30

Silver nanoparticles are well known for their anti-bacteria properties[1-4]. One of the main routes by which they may act as an anti-bacteria agent, is through attaching themselves to the thiol group present on the cellular membrane surface and hence disrupting the membrane's function[5]. Hence, it is crucial to gain a greater understanding of this complex silver-thiol interaction to determine silver nanoparticles' role in biological systems. With thiols, silver nanoparticles have been proposed to form various types of compounds with different structures[6-8]. One of the ...

Gender equality leads to more Olympic medals for men and women

2014-09-30

Gender equality boosts a country's Olympic medal count for both women and men, shows a new study from the University of British Columbia. Drawing data from the World Economic Forum's 2013 Global Gender Gap Report, researchers compared a country's tendency toward sexual equality with its medal counts from the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. Countries with greater parity – particularly for measures of educational equality – had more women and men reach the podium. "Our study makes apparent that gender equality has a tendency to lift ...

New learning mechanism for individual nerve cells

2014-09-30

The traditional view is that learning is based on the strengthening or weakening of the contacts between the nerve cells in the brain. However, this has been challenged by new research findings from Lund University in Sweden. These indicate that there is also a third mechanism – a kind of clock function that gives individual nerve cells the ability to time their reactions. "This means a dramatic increase in the brain's learning capacity. The cells we have studied control the blink reflex, but there are many cells of the same type that control entirely different processes. ...

Erectile dysfunction drugs could affect vision of genetically susceptible users

2014-09-30

Sildenafil, the active ingredient in the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra®, could cause unusual visual responses in people who carry a common mutation for eye disease and may have long-term detrimental effects on their vision, UNSW Australia researchers warn. Sildenafil can inhibit an enzyme which is important for transmitting light signals from the retina to the brain, and it is already known from clinical trials of Viagra® that its use in high doses can cause transient disturbances in the vision of some healthy people. "Side effects can include sensitivity to bright ...

First mapping that reveals the molecular pathway for MDSC cancer progression

2014-09-30

Scientists from InSilico Medicine and its partners successfully established a visual mapping of the molecular pathway cancer progression originating from myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSC). The damage and immune suppression the cells cause are not fully understood, however this is a major stepping stone in creating necessary transparency. Highly cited MetaCoreTM was the primary interactome analysis tool used for mapping, providing these promising results. "MDSCs are elicited by tumor-derived factors from precursors present in hematopoietic organs such as the bone ...

Benzodiazepine sedatives linked to higher rates of mortality compared to propofol

2014-09-30

AUDIO: Sedation is commonly used in the intensive care unit (ICU) to make patients that require mechanical ventilation more comfortable, and less anxious. What many don't realize is that sedation can... Click here for more information. Sedation is frequently required for mechanically ventilated intensive care unit (ICU) patients to reduce anxiety, provide comfort, and assist in providing optimal respiratory support. It is estimated that each year, there are nearly 1 million U.S. ...

How to make a 'perfect' solar absorber

2014-09-30

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--The key to creating a material that would be ideal for converting solar energy to heat is tuning the material's spectrum of absorption just right: It should absorb virtually all wavelengths of light that reach Earth's surface from the sun — but not much of the rest of the spectrum, since that would increase the energy that is reradiated by the material, and thus lost to the conversion process. Now researchers at MIT say they have accomplished the development of a material that comes very close to the "ideal" for solar absorption. The material is a two-dimensional ...

UConn scientists discover how to beat monk parakeets at their own game

2014-09-30

In a study published this week in the online journal PeerJ, University of Connecticut researchers announce they have found a way to prevent Monk Parakeets (Myiopsitta monarchus), an invasive species of parrot, from building huge nests that create power outages and public hazards on utility poles by blocking their access to the electric lines that are the gateway to their nest sites. The nests, which are built out of sticks and twigs, can weigh up to 200 pounds or more. The damage they cause can cost electric utility companies millions of dollars annually. But, the brightly ...

Selectively rewiring the brain's circuitry to treat depression

2014-09-30

Philadelphia, PA, September 30, 2014 – On Star Trek, it is easy to take for granted the incredible ability of futuristic doctors to wave small devices over the heads of both humans and aliens, diagnose their problems through evaluating changes in brain activity or chemistry, and then treat behavior problems by selectively stimulating relevant brain circuits. While that day is a long way off, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex does treat symptoms of depression in humans by placing a relatively small device on a person's scalp ...

New material steals oxygen from the air

2014-09-30

Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have synthesized crystalline materials that can bind and store oxygen in high concentrations. Just one spoon of the substance is enough to absorb all the oxygen in a room. The stored oxygen can be released again when and where it is needed. We do fine with the 21 per cent oxygen in the air around us. But sometimes we need oxygen in higher concentrations; for example lung patients must carry heavy oxygen tanks, cars using fuel cells need a regulated oxygen supply. Perhaps one day in the future even sunlight-driven "reversible" ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Global cervical cancer vaccine roll-out shows it to be very effective in reducing cervical cancer and other HPV-related disease, but huge variations between countries in coverage

Personalised “cocktails” of antibiotics, probiotics and prebiotics hold great promise in treating a common form of irritable bowel syndrome, pilot study finds